Keep going indies, big dreamers, and risk takers.

For Dreamers

It really sickens me the number of drafts I see in my post list, and how many of them are basically empty. Tons of articles, started, not finished.

Getting back into the swing of things is rough, school, work, relationships, there's always something. And really that's just life, learning to deal enough to move past the low times is essential and part of everyone's development; keeping true to yourself and keeping good people around you in the process is part of true happiness. And of course all of this is very difficult, though entirely worth it.

To bring this back around to topic. It's really hard to keep going with all of those dreams. This is why we aspire and hold those successful and happy people we see in life in such high regard. The only problem there is we see these more successful people and instead of seeing inspiration so often we get the "Man I could never be that good." gut response and don't try. Unless of course, we actually have no idea the level of work and dedication that's gone into their success, which is where we respond with "Bah, what a idiot, I could do that and be famous." Which is two parts incorrect, one part obvious.

Bit of Reality

And here is my point, the I could do that is where you succeed. That's all there is too it. Add on the assumptions on how much work is actually behind the success and the assumption that you'll wind up famous and you're horribly mislead. You can't know how much work goes into, making a game, writing a novel, creating an internet show, whatever, until you actually do that thing. And you'll never know how much goes into doing that successfully until you do it to completion, and then continue doing it, while enjoying yourself. If you hate what you are currently doing, then you're doing it wrong. Not to say you're doing the wrong thing, but you're doing it wrong. Living the dream is not about the endgame, it's good to have goals and strive towards them, but if the goal is too high for you to feel good about yourself while striving for it, then you're not living the dream. Every goal, every project, ever path, has set backs. Some harder then others, but you will eventually hit all of them. The key to success, is not staying down when you've tripped over the first, dozenth, or millionth set back.

The key to successfully being successful (actually having the enjoyable lifestyle you dreamed of) is not living for the lifestyle, but for your passion. If you see yourself taking entire days just to write the next best selling novel or spending hours behind the computer to be hailed as the next genius video game designer; then you're going to be miserable and you probably won't be very good at what you do. That's because it's only the people who care about what they're doing, instead of comparing themselves and their work to others, are the only ones with the mindset to focus on carry on through the hardships and the setbacks; because they see they're doing what they love, that's what makes them happy, and that's what they go to when times are rough. Of course these people make it look easy, they have the right mindset. Instead of living for their goals, where only in achieving those goals does someone feel fulfilled; they live for their art, where in simply partaking in their art that someone finds joy. Now this might sound like hippy talk, we've had so many people in our lives insist you can't live off dreams, that you need to work for this "backup plan" before going out and doing what you want. All of that I find defeatist and nonsensical for 4 simple reasons.

1. If your goal in life is to have a solid "backup plan" to your dreams, then you will be miserable. 

Because not living with something you truly feel is your propose, is miserable. This is why boring adults have children and then feel better about themselves, because they want and need propose. (not implying that parenting is an empty replacement for any higher cause)

2. Living the dream does not mean being ignorant of reality. It does not equate to quitting your job, leaving your family, and living as some hobo painting the faces of celebrities onto sneakers on the street. It means gearing your life and actions towards self fulfillment while maintaining your responsibilities. Paying the bills, being a parent. Continuing to be in the life of those that care about you. Every action is an investment; measure the cost and return of time and money put in and how much joy and profit you receive out of it. No it's not all about the money, but if what your doing is burning a hole in your wallet/purse to the degree you can't life comfortably and need it as an escape from your situation, then you need to be mindful of your spending with your financial situation. (this is where the comparison of games and drugs come in) If you have student lones you have no business flying out to Florida on vacation with friends or buying two of the next gen consoles, unless you get a serious discount and budget the rest of your year to make up for it. It's about finding a balance between a lifestyle you and your family can feel content with, while doing something that makes you feel better about yourself.

3. There is too much offered in life to assign yourself to "plans" for the future. So much will happen, some opportunities will never present themselves meanwhile others will bombard you daily. Being attentive and listening will show you how much the world has to offer on a daily basis, being honest to yourself will let you see what you should/can do to better yourself, and acknowledging you might be wrong and you probably have more options then you think will let you take steps outside that comfort zone and live a life and be happy when you didn't think you could. Don't limit yourself, simply be honest with yourself. It is only when we are dishonest with ourselves that we end making decisions we will one day look back and regret.

4. Yes it is true that we are only assigned one lifetime, and careers are years in the making. But that doesn't mean after you picked a career in high school or got promoted at your day job that you're stuck in one destiny. There is no such thing as a point of no return. That doesn't qualify wasting years of your life doing nothing with the 'plan' to turn it all around down the road. It simply proves no one is truly lost, they're just ignorant of their standing. It can take only a second to find your feet and then the light. You don't need to force yourself to be content with a life you don't want to live.

So all of you who think you're no good, or that you've fallen too low, know that you're wrong. Know that the only thing that's stopping you from finding your footing is the fog of your own self doubt. That true honesty and having a passion can be light enough to clear an easy path. And that the path is never easy, but when you know you love it you don't notice the effort. And know that the fact you can start off and do this without effort is proof that you are strong and have the potential, and therefor all the requirements to live a dream. So never give up. Even when it's hard and you don't want to continue for the strain, reach out; there are others with your dream that have been in you low and will gladly lend a hand, because they know only thing worse then finding yourself in those low places, is seeing someone just lay there.

Good luck to all of you.

Ouya... soon to be [M]

OUYA Revisited 

Well, it's been a while and this is soon to hit stores. That's right the 

$99 game console with the free to play market base has been realized. But, really, how realized is it?

The premise of the Ouya's creation is that game consoles don't need to be big and expensive to run games, and that games don't need to cost you an arm and a leg to purchase -could even be free, and that you should be allowed to mod and hack the crap out of whatever item you've paid good money for. Which, to anyone that understands economics, is a very tall order. And the Ouya was designed to set out to create and fill this non-existent space in the market. The idea was that with Android the console could be small and inexpensive, with a free development kit smaller and indie developers would flock to the Ouya and end up creating a flood of top notch titles, and with these titles and the console going for cheap chips the gamer demographic would turn to Ouya as a sort of console Steam on steroids. What went wrong? Well, first the Ouya isn't actually as powerful as the current Android phone you probably have. And second it's competing with the WiiU out, the PS4 right around the corner, and the whatever-Xbox over the hill. 

It's less powerful then all of these and does not have the line up we assume -and more importantly trust with our money- are coming from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. On one hand the Ouya is far cheaper than these other consoles and now that Bioshock Infinite is out nothing seems to be massively grabbing the attention of the consumers right now. This could actually be the perfect time for the Ouya to come out. 

This whole, middle-market indie hot spot plan could really work, especially with the Triple-A Industry in the place it is and this supposed "crash" on it's way. This middle ground market will be the next big thing, if it's from the Ouya though, is still to be seen. This industry -like every industry- thrives on the social buzz of it's products, without the marketing the triple-A titles get the Ouya will inherently have less of a social buzz. Especially without the exclusivity of any high-profile IPs that other consoles have, by comparison the Ouya will inevitably fall into the background. But of course this is all speculative, nothing like this has ever happened before, and the Ouya's unique production and background alone set it apart from the corporate competition  so comparison is pointless, right? Wrong.

Along with it the units shipped to all of the kickstarter benefactors, Ouya is selling in Gamestop right next to the other consoles. It is designed and marketed as an answer and alternate to the higher priced models. In this consoles history, along with recognition as a trail blazer, the Ouya will be compared to the other consoles of the time. Something to note though in this industry is that in the long run a console's worth is not measured souly by the technology under it's hood or even necessarily the money it made compared to this history of all consoles; but by the quality and diversity of its software library. Where the big producers put massive amounts of money and man power into making a handful of titles each year and an even smaller proportion of that will be remembered in the following months the worth consumers place on their three-four hundred dollar device ends up behind the value of roughly ten, fifteen games. Even less if those titles are offered on other preferred more accessible overly useful platforms, say, a computer.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enthralled producers are taking more time and spending serious resources trying to create better products, that is the only way this medium will grow and stretch to its full potential; plus it adds a hard precedent that the smaller studios will have to compete with when creating their own interactive experience. But the time and energy put into creating the moreover lackluster product we see time and time again coming from the triple-A companies does not satisfy the demands of the customer; DLC and patches are only prolonged distractions that are sad attempts to make up for rushed workmanship or to hold the communities attention long enough to ensure they'll be excited for the announcement of the release of the next installment. When none of this works -in most cases- the community looks to satisfy their demands elsewhere. This elsewhere, tends to be Steam, or the digital indie community in general. Plain and simple, customers are more likely to drop ten dollars on three games than fifty on one. And this is where the Ouya has the upper hand. The WiiU has been out for a while now, and how many games have been released for it? The Ouya is not even out yet, and will have a confirmed library of over 500 titles! That's downright unheard of, imagine how many more developers will pick up the Ouya as its community grows. If we're assuming at least the people that backed the Ouya on it's kickstarter page are going to purchase one, you have 65,000 buyer market; which all sounds very profitable, but they've got this whole free to play market base. What's stopping this from just shriveling up from lack of income? We have no idea how that will turn out, nothing similar has ever happened before.

Well actually we have seen this before, and we've seen it succeed. Well not a platform, the Humble Bundle is a pay what you want series of indie game collections that are digitally distributed. Of course the designers give incentive to pay a little extra, if you pay more then the average you get extra titles or features; similar to how the Ouya has free to play with fees for extra features or bonus content. Even while customers are given the choice to pay a single cent for a handful of games the Humble Bundles have, as of February 2013, raised over 33.2 million dollars, with a good percentage of that going to charity. And this did not start off as the pinnacle of the mainstream indie games, these were the awkward and niche genres, the puzzle games and the sidescrollers. This didn't start with never before or exclusive titles, the most mainstream game on the first bundle was World of Goo; a game basically everyone already had, probably pirated. Still the Humble Bundle distribution continues to thrive and brings out more new, exciting, and different titles each sale. The Ouya not only has a chance, but it's very existence makes a pretty strong argument. The Ouya trusts and respects the customers, it trusts the customers to back products and producers they enjoy, it respects the customer's choice to alter a product they've paid for. Most important though, in my mind, the Ouya looks at its customers as friends, instead of as enemies or sheep. And that's something we need more in this industry.

 This was Steve Bullin with a revisit of the Ouya, if you like what you saw or you'd like to see a review of the actual product follow or subscribe to the blog, I will be purchasing an Ouya and reviewing hardware and software later on. Have a good day everyone,(I'm a liar) and don't forget to be awesome. ^^

 Links- Humble Bundle, Ouya

Exposition and Micro-Narrative

EXPOSITION AND MICRO-NURRRATIVE
By

Steve Bullin

As mentioned in Games Need Better Storytelling part 2, exposition is the integral part of storytelling that delivers the context needed for meaningful world interactions to the player and.. well dang-it here; Extra Credits did a bit on Exposition already. And I guess this should be here too. Anywho, without exposition done well the player will either tune out of the games story and not know what's happening or are less likely to care about what does happen. I bet there are people out there now saying "We'll I don't really care about story, I just like multiplayer and shooting things.", I'm tempted to tell you to leave right now.. But I know that's just because you've become accustom to terrible stories in games. Everyone has those moments they've just started playing a game and they just can't get themselves to care enough to keep playing. They toss the controller aside and turn of their console(or computer) and say "This is so stupid. Why does the game even have me doing this?". And HAHA, you've just proven my point. Narrative is the justification of actions, without it, we don't feel or understand the drive for anything to happen onscreen. It's like reading a very, very terrible fan fiction or .. story written by an inexperienced author. Things like explosions, and gun scenes, and the hero making out with the girl are there just because. And because the creator simply wanted it -without any internal logic or reasoning behind the events happening- the reader really can't get themselves to enjoy, much less understand, the piece. 

 

Of course there are games like chess or checkers that some might argue have no narrative, to that I say hogwash. Narrative does not always have to embody the form we regularly associate with "story", it simply has to establish a purpose. You draw O's to make a line or cut off the other player's line of X's and win. You move the pieces on checkers to hop over and eliminate all the opponent's pieces. You move the specific chess pieces in certain ways because they each have different titles and properties, you do this to corner the opponent's king. The frog crosses the road and river to get to the other side. You shoot down the missiles because they're nukes and will blow up whole towns and you'll lose. Now the exposition in these simple cases like chess or checkers would simply be the rules. To win you have to corner the king, to corner the king you have to set up a number of your pieces that will entrap him without being at risk of being removed in the following turn themselves. To do that you have to understand the movement of each piece. And there on would be a description of the movements and rules each separate piece abides by throughout the game. 

The same is true (and better explained) with the narrative of Frogger, getting across the road requires you don't die. Dieing is the narrative behind an event that causes and end game, where crossing the road or river is the narrative behind the player moving up the screen. Surviving and getting across without causing an end game is the narrative behind winning the level. Ergo the exposition behind all of these things is the game's explanation of how the narrative fits behind the mechanic and progression of play. When the player causes this end game it was because they were hit by a car, they drowned, ect. The exposition is accomplished in these early forms by graphics and sound effects, and nothing has changed. The narrative behind why something could be in these life/death situation is a frog on the highway near a river. The narrative behind the mechanic of movement is jumping, the exposition of this is the sound effect and the animation of the pixel frog jumping. Likewise the exposition of the frog entering an end game is the death animation and sound following an event that would cause an end state. The exposition delivers the context needed for meaningful world interactions to the player. Avoiding or chasing the pixels on screen mean something and provide the drive for the game, the exposition explains the narrative and creates the framework for the experience.  

(this guy does a bunch of great game recordings check his channel out here)

I'm certain all of us have had moments where, without that framework, we were unable to appreciate an experience. When we were real young and we couldn't figure out the controls we still loved the movement onscreen, but got upset with the game when it didn't do what we wanted. And remember that moment you first picked up a game and really got the controls? It was as if a whole world was opened up to us onscreen. Because of the impute-response and the exposition-narrative on top of it we acquired an understanding to that impute-response happening onscreen and were really able to immerse ourselves into the world. We could feel this sort of kinetic projection between ourselves and the avatar onscreen. We think jump or shoot in our heads and it translates to actions onscreen, our avatar gets hit off a cliff or we misjudge a jump and cringe when we see them fall to their death. We could project ourselves as the character onscreen. This kind of self projection onto the game avatar makes every in-game interaction more intimate and engaging for the player. Here is where dialog comes in. 

How fun is it watching people lean when making a turn?

In truth dialog is simply and extension of the exact same exposition to narrative as mentioned before, it is simply a different form. Similar to how death sound is similar exposition to death animation, it simply engages the player differently in providing that context. End game death text -along with opening menu and file loading- might be one of the most perfected handling of dialog exposition in game simply because it provides pacing and doesn't interrupt the standard gameflow within the piece. It forces that moment of pause and makes the player wallow in their moment of failure, while also giving them time to calm down, or deescalate from the tension of the situation they were in at the moment of the end game. It's like catching your breath before running into battle, it allows a moment of mental preparation and allows the player to feel their triumphs are more meaningful because they were allowed a moment to pause and reassess the challenge before them. Giving that time for players to analyze the game's challenge and strategist attaches that much more meaning to gameplay and different mechanics as they are introduced over time. 

You know when-

-Alright, alright. Dialog exposition. 

The movement in gaming for the past... probably longer then I've been around. Has been to better convey story, character, plot, narrative, within games and to make those characters and story more real and meaningful to the player. I'll take a shot in the dark and say that's actually been the underlying movement throughout entire history of games. But to speak specifically about video games, the movement has been to expand the narrative and world of games through interaction and plot LIKE NO PLAYER HAS EVER SEEN! We see this through the obsession of dynamic choice, more realistic graphic, more realistic physics, character design, character and world interaction, ect. But the simple fact of the matter is that all these things boil down to a flashy exposition of a, normally less then flashy or interesting, narrative. This is where exposition and narrative in games fail, they provide context for a shallow, dull, or downright overplayed narrative. If that narrative is not something players can really relate or get attached to then the motivation built behind everything in the piece is lost to them. All the novels worth of text, dialog interactions, or whatever interactions onscreen that give us context cannot make us interested in a flat world. Now there are a dozen things that can debunk a narrative and ruin a game, but a good example might be those really poorly made web based games. I'm more talking about the, shoot the watermelon or stomp the cockroach, kind of games then FarmVille. The narrative in those games is weak; not just because they're punch, shoot, crush the thing games. But because that's the entire narrative, do this action, "Win a Prize!"; but we know that's a scam so the only narrative is the action itself. The exposition of some watermelon exploding or some cardboard cutout figure getting hit is the reasoning behind the interaction, flashy exposition with an uninteresting narrative. 

Narrative and exposition are two sides of the same coin, the story and the means of storytelling. As we've seen one does not exist without the other even in games without dialog or much in the way of narrative. The best way to learn balance in my opinion is to study experiences that use the least number of forms of exposition as possible to better acknowledge and understand both the underlying narrative and the exact lengths the forms of exposition go to convey the moments of narrative in a game. In other words we should be look at games that have no dialog (or very little) to better understand the importance of it and the importance of just leaving it out when it's unnecessary. By understanding the depth and level of story and characters that can be conveyed through exposition that's easy to include without the slightest break in the gameflow we can more easily study and come to understand the impact of exposition and narrative on a piece. We can learn from games like Journey, the classics from the arcade era, from studying the silent protagonists within Portal, Half Life, Zelda, and mountains of others that I can't think of right now because it's really late. But we'll talk more about those fun specifics in length later.^^

For now, good night everyone, and thanks for tuning in.

 

GAME MOVIES

So I almost forgot. I did a bit on theory of translation between games and film. Here is dat.

Hi there. I do things

Ya know, I really do want to keep getting my posts up here. I do. I have a few half done in the drafts that I chip away at every so often. But really there's this other thing I contribute to which is a little more important.. because it's for school and not just fun. 

Here, this is KineCritical.

Our facebook page gets some super interesting posts. 

We're also on our school/internet radio and do podcast about film news and other fun cinema related things.... sometimes we talk a ton of superheros and games... We get distracted. All good stuff though. So watch the Facebook page and we'll let you know when we're live.

And we also have a twitter; encase that's what your into. 

So yeah, on top of the standard student load I do dat, so if whatever Netizens that find there way here feel discouraged by activity and would like to see more of my thoughts (mostly half baked drool) then just comment or send me a message and I will find the time and put something out just for you! Seriously though I will. There is nothing more rewarding then someone enjoying your work.

P.S. I am actually very regularly working on a game related project with a number of  wonderful talented like minded individuals when it comes to games/game theory. 

(this is how I justify sneaking this in) 

And once completed you will be the first to know. ^^

Game Design Needs Better Storytelling Pt2[E]

Part Two of Game Design Needs Better Storytelling Pt 1

BLUE MOON

So now we see how Bear at the Door is applied in games, but this is normally what only shapes the beginning -or on a smaller scale, the conflicts- within games. But a even more prominently used shape in gaming is the Blue Moon, the Blue Moon is the act of presenting the reader with an impossible or unheard of situation, the kind of thing that either doesn't exist or would happen only once in a blue moon, as the saying goes. 

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

Now this is something the industry has been using since the very beginning of gaming, and yet we still have titles that completely fail to deliver. In high fantasy you can put a player into a world and perspective that they'ed never get to experience otherwise, and within that premise writers can say something about the world and our inner selves. The fall is in the creator's imagination and even in reality; you can imagine fantastic worlds of dragons, forest spirits, aliens, zombies, and werewolves but there are so many works of fiction that already have. The viewer thinks, oh yeah it's one of those, and has been pulled from the experience. A cliche is a cliche, despite the context. The reason classical fantasy types are still viable genres for creation is the human phenomena of suspension of disbelief, when you start a story and first present the world the viewer is willing to accept it existence with the context of the story. And then depending on the execution of exposition, how you reveal story and characters to the viewer, the player will become more and more engrossed within the world. 

A rule of thumb in writing is to have one main thing the viewers have to accept; fairy-tale creatures are real, a pharmaceutical company has started the zombie apocalypse, we can relive your assassin ancestor's life with science, a plumber is transported to a strange world, or probably most notable example..

And after that is established the reader will accept anything that's within the possibilities of that first Blue Moon. As information is presented as long as it flows with a logical escalation, it feels believable. You're a wizard, so wizards and witches are real, so magic is real, so magical creatures are real, so there is another secretive side to our world, so it's maintained that muggles are hidden from this magical world, so magical gifted individuals must go to school to learn control of their gifts, so there is an entire ministry to keep order and maintain the wizarding world from muggles, the list could continue going but you get the idea. This is possibly the most basic rule when delivering exposition, and one of those ones that early writers seem to neglect more then anything. 

MORE SUSPENSION

Another commonly used tool in Blue Moon shape stories is to distance the narrator from the story in the beginning; 'my old man heard it from his dad's friend from in the war.' The narration explains they understand the story seems far-fetched so they're asking us as viewers to simply take it at its worth as a story, and so we do. We are willing to suspend disbelief that much farther because narrator has established that they are not responsible for the story, and so there is not much we as viewers can do but take the story for its worth. Look at the 1987 film The Princess Bride, without the grandfather/grandson storytelling aspect it's a really strange awkward little film. Think of the film without that side story, it's just kind of goofy and pretty well loses it's real strength as a story. An example of this technique used for exposition in games is the Witcher 2. Don't get me wrong, the storytelling has plenty of problems, but it does some things with this mechanic that we should look at to consider how this could be better adapted for storytelling in games. But, we'll talk about that another time.

(Geralt wants you to tune in again later)

 .So we've taken a look at how a properly delivered exposition and the suspension of disbelief can help the player get immersed in fictitious worlds, lets take a quick look at the most common ancient story shape and pacing.

JOURNEY 

 Last but certainly not least is the Journey, expected to be the oldest shape of storytelling the journey story has become one of the closest and most dear to us. That's because it is about overcoming adversity and growing as an individual, rites of passage into adulthood and achievement of self-affirmation, things that we can all understand and empathize with. In some degree nearly every story is about a journey of sorts, in the exception of a few really confusing art-house films. 

In a good Journey it instantly makes the reader see from the perspective of the protagonist and engages them in the conflict. As the oldest type of story the journey shape naturally has already worked out the best flow for its story to be structured on.  

(The picture above is the Three Act Structure of  the 2010 film The King's Speech.)

THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE

The three act structure is the most used story structure in narrative mediums; the difference in games being that, as a interactive medium, designers work a way to either skip the first act and fill it in later or get through it as quickly as possible. That style is known as In medias Res, (look at the Bear at the Door story shape in part 1) and essentially explains why things like Amnesia and flashbacks are used so often with the main character in games. This makes it easier to convey the first act, the background and life before the dramatic question without having to slow the pacing of the game for exposition. (The Extra Credits fokes did an amazing job explaining what I just went over with the story structure and such, but in much better detail with examples, if you don't get it yet watch their vid.)

Okay now the Three Act Structure is typically characterized by three distinct stages separated by two main plot points that signify the turning points in the protagonists story.  Think of this structure applied to your favorite dramatic film and decide where you think the two main plot points are to divide the three main acts.  When well done the plot points punctuate the shift in the stories tension and can really drive the protagonists story, by the end of the film you really empathize with the character's plight.

FINIAL CONCLUSION
Bad stories are the production of bad writing, plain and simple. Bad storytelling can be a little more difficult to pin down. I feel with all the complaints about bad storytelling the main root of the issue is when the story cannot decide where the different acts start and end or how to deliver the transition plot points. The times where you have gotten to some supposedly big important part of a game and just not cared. Look at Mafia2, the gameplay is mostly competent, but it falls flat at ever dramatic scene. (we'll give that title a breakdown later, it deserves it)

The industry is starting to figure it out but in respect to the bulk of triple-A titles, with little exception, the tricks to delivering a well structured narration within a interactive medium are still a hit and miss deal. To some it's only getting worse because of the producers-only-greenlighting-projects-that-look-like-something-that's-already-out-leading-to-stagnation-and-the-limitation-of-creativity-in-the-medium problem. But in my opinion it's simply a part of our growth, you have to fail to learn.

If you're paying attention you can already see the producers and tripple-A tycoons starting to figure out that well crafted stories can make good experiences, and people pay  for those. That and just maybe writers have found more crafty ways to sneak in good stories :)

      

We'll talk more later. Until next time, thanks for tuning in everyone and have a great night.

Next time we'll talk about exposition and why sometimes so many of us just don't care.

Christoph Hartmann's "Photo Realism" Interview Response [E]

Author's note - the promised episode is on its way, but current events are current so.. here.

PROLOGUE


I first heard of the interview with Christoph Hartmann ,the head of 2K games, interview about 2K and 2K's views on the future of the industry that resulted in Mr. Hartmann's comments about Photorealism from the Jimquisition on the Escapist Magazine. But before I let my artzy fartzy designer side of me start ranting I did some searching and found the full interview. Give it a read. To be fair to Mr. Hartmann I'm going to include both the question and his answer from Gameindustry.bliz with each of my responses.

 
INTERVIEW RESPONSES

The interviewer, Gamesindustry US editor, James Brightman goes through the interview asking the general future of the industry type questions and for the most part Mr. Hartmann gives pretty standard (in my opinion, non-committal) answers. About two thirds through the interview though are where alot of people starting to disagree with Mr. Hartmann.


MOBILE GAMING: CONVENIENCE VS QUALITY? 

James Brightman - On the mobile front, a lot of traditional publishers have been having a hard time adjusting to that market. EA has done well, and Activision recently launched a mobile brand, but how does 2K look at tablets and smartphones? Is that going to be a big growth opportunity for you at some point?

Christoph Hartmann - It definitely is a platform and area that we are looking at very closely. If you look at Civilization, it was one of the best-selling games on the iPhone and iPad. We definitely are committed to that area of the business. We're definitely looking at other IPs that we have to see if they work on mobile. We're not just going to take some random IP and throw it on there. We're going to make good games, and we're also looking at doing something original one day.We don't think it will be a revolution to the business, though. No one will ever be able to replace the power of the console business - having a console with that power and the opportunities for quality games is very important. And while being able to pick it up and being convenient is a big thing, and your phone and calendar are there, playing and carrying around games is nothing new. It will be a larger part of the market, but it is not the holy grail of the market and the business. Look at the history, there is a place for everything, but I don't think anything is ever going to replace the consoles given the maturity of the market.


Response -  Alright... well sure being able to play and carry around games is nothing new, but the fact that we're not only talking Nintendo while doing it is. Nintendo has dominated the handheld market and nothing has been able to compete simply because pushing a new device to compete against Nintendo in the mobile game market that's just about been branded Nintendo Territory was inconceivable. You bought Nintendo handhelds because you were looking for the IPs that you've loved and the handhelds could constantly support that kind of game style its demographic was nostalgic of and, in relation to the rest of the industry, starved of. Secondly Nintendo has a solid reputation as completely family friendly, parents want an mobile entertainment for their children that they know will put out plenty of games they consider age appropriate. That was a business model you just could not compete with. But to introduce gaming to an already universally used and owned mobile device, finally with software capabilities that can stand up in that market, you've just revolutionized the industry.
Mobile games brought in an entirely different demographic to the industry and also brought back more of the older game styles; arcade rail shooter, side scroller, shoot'em up, and brought new ones that designers would never have considered feasible in the market to the mainstream. The Indie industry had an entirely new platform that was easy to attain and approach for design and innovation, the old school styles of play and throw back gameplay that the indie crowd had always catered to were suddenly in the attention of a larger demographic then ever before. App mobile games are one of the most affordable way for large and small studios to make creative innovative risks. If you're wondering what kind of art an app game could bring to the industry then just take some time looking at Super Brother's Sword & Sworcery. Mobile games re-energized the industry, bringing back the lessons early designers had been forced to discover to get around because of their technology's limitations.
The largest point of this argument though that I will press though is that the amount of material and capabilities put into a game do not define it's quality. Some of the greatest moments in gaming have not been built because of flashy new technology, they've been built by designers and writers who have worked together conscience of the resources at their disposal. It was about working around your limitations to make the best experience possible. To quote Stranger Then Fiction, 
"... who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living, chooses pancakes?"

"Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes." 
The metaphor being living as these massive budget, visually and mechanically impressive works. And the pancakes being a smaller work with a stronger design and execution. 

 

    

DEATH OF THE CONSOLES: SLOW AND AGONIZING 

James Brightman - I met with David Jaffe at E3, and he said that he thinks consoles will become dinosaurs after the next generation. He says next generation is probably the last generation now that things are going digital with smart TVs and cloud gaming. It sounds like you disagree completely with him?

Christoph Hartmann - I semi-disagree with him because the way your games are going to get transmitted from one source to the gamer might change, but I'm talking about big, huge quality games. It is like how people consume food. Fast food is on the rise and that has to do with our lifestyle, but there are high quality restaurants that are not going away. When I talk console games, I'm talking about huge experiences with many hours of gaming... and you will always need a major platform for those titles.
I don't know what we will have in the future, maybe a PS 15 or something, but we will need the hardware. It's like in the software industry, the software pushes the hardware; there's a give and take and it's the same in video games. We need machines built to perform well in one area, and that is gaming. You're never going to be able to compete with it because it's about quality and it's built to do one thing best. And, by the way, the whole streaming and cloud thing is just nice words until the [internet infrastructure improves]. I don't believe in cloud gaming until a cable provider stops breaking my internet connection every morning, when everyone logs in at the same time. I don't see this being fixed for a long, long time.

Response - Well, again, quality is not defined by the tech under the hood. Technologically impressive games come out all the time and no one even bats an eye, in this era change and technological improvement is common place, the true drive is always within the new use of technology. In this media technology has opened up thousands of possibilities, but it's the use of that technology that creates engaging experiences. With physical distribution production costs so high publishers are slow to greenlight anything that's not similar to whatever has recently been the most profitable on the mainstream market. That's not a recipe for a innovation, that leads to stagnation. With the digital distribution market growing so rapidly due to a better retail situation and infinitely better convenience eventually the consoles as we know it today will becoming obsolete. Notice how the newer generation consoles are trying hard and harder to be more then just a gaming console, it's because companies just can't get customers to justify paying the prices the companies want for something that's just another game system. How exactly and to what extent digital distribution will eventually change the video game industry we just can't know. We've only begun to grasp the full implications and possibilities of an internet hook up with multiplayer, look at Dust 514 and Eve online. The shift to fully digital gaming will for better or worse completely change the landscape of gaming, and the changes in the industry thus far because of it are just the tip of the iceberg. 




VIOLENCE IN GAMES AND BETTERING THE MEDIUM: PHOTO REALISTIC

James Brightman - What's your reaction to Warren Spector and his talking about how today's games are overly saturated with violence? Obviously, a lot of games in the 2K portfolio have plenty of violence in them. Do you think developers should be working to make other types of games not steeped in violence to help the maturation of the medium?

Christoph Hartmann - It's something that comes up internally a lot and in product development. What's the difference between the movies and gaming? Movies you just watch. You get emotional involvement in both, but in gaming you interact. That limits you already in what you can do, as certain emotions can't be recreated. Recreating a Mission Impossible experience in gaming is easy; recreating emotions in Brokeback Mountain is going to be tough, or at least very sensitive in this country. It's limiting. Comedy is already very hard in video games. You can't have a game simply built around comedy. It has to be part of an overall vibe. So there is only a certain area that you can use [to create games] and then you look at technology, you can kind of maybe make people look right, but it will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies.

Until games are photorealistic, it'll be very hard to open up to new genres. We can really only focus on action and shooter titles; those are suitable for consoles now. If someone comes up with a video game where it's all about you falling in love, where you have the emotions and you don't need a lot of interaction from your device, that's great but what happened to those interactive movies from the '90s? They were boring. It was like a movie that gave you three endings.

Response - The notion that only with a fully photo-realistic range of facial and body expressions that games will reach their full potential as a medium is.. well, it's ignorant to the theory, maybe even law, of all other forms of artistic medium. First in defense of non-photorealistic visuals, I'd like to site the entire animated film industry. Disney, there, how was your feels trip? This argument's over... right? Well no, simply because we feel we know something and we feel that examples we bring out prove the opposition wrong doesn't mean we've won. What we need to do is explain and understand the phenomena beneath our stand at its base. We know it's right, but we need to understand why it's right. Which for games (as a fledgling medium) might seem difficult, but lets be honest it's only difficult if we're lazy. Hundreds of years of arts have built up to this interactive medium, there is no other form of storytelling and expression that can take and adapt from more other existing forms to creating unique experiences.

LET'S GET STARTED
To understand a game as art, you first have to view it as art. You have to notice all the elements that go into it that create a completely unique experience in relation to other mediums, and in that you just can't relate it to other medium because they don't measure off the same theory in design. Art, at its root, is expression, but here's a better definition for our purposes. Art is the expression of real world beauty through the artist's interpretation. Meaning that all works of art are simply an interpretation of reality.

A QUICK MOMENT IN ART HISTORY

Pablo Picasso as child prodigy could draw photorealism (as the eye sees it) from the age of eight. It was within his later works that made him famous where he played with proportion and his representation of reality. Art has never truly been about replicating reality in the world, it has been about how to represent the beauty of the world. It's in interpretation, not replication, where an artist can really convey emotion to the viewer. Look at these two...

Which of these two stand out stronger, which seems to stimulate more, which makes you think and feel more?

BACK ON TRACK: CONVEYANCE   
The human mind and perception is a wonderful thing, we can look at proportions and representation of a human figure that is completely unnatural within the human world and still understand it to be human. Even in giving inanimate objects human like features we can mentally connect with the work as a representation of ourselves.

Exaggerated human like features and expressions prove to still powerfully convey emotion. With this phenomena the full range of human emotions can still be powerfully conveyed within an unnaturally proportioned representation. The catch is how accurately they can represent (not replicate) the emotions and convey the emotional situation to the audience.

UNCANNY VALLEY
Course, there is a powerful downfall to this phenomena, the Uncanny Valley. Teddy Bears were an instant hit, not because they looked like bears and were named after a popular president, but because their proportions were based of human babies. The slope is where proportions or expressions are close.. but just off in the wrong way. Then it becomes just creepy or unsettling and all feeling of connection or empathy with the subjects are completely lost.

Just... look..

Which one wants to watch you from outside the window and hug your dog too tightly?

CONCLUSIONS
It's in understanding all these things and all the subtle aspects of human interaction, and then taking those into account throughout the entire design and production process that video games can accurately portray strong emotions through the characters. They don't have to look like snapshots of reality, they have to look like snapshots of real life interaction.

It can be something as small as characters holding hands.

And without looking at the graphics, or even getting a glimpse at the faces, that connection between the characters are conveyed.

We can see those emotions and we understand them as a representation of our own feelings, we can empathize. We could create a Brokeback Mountain for gaming, but the reason we probably wont right now is more because of the political environment then our technology. When there are things like Chick-fil-A going on, how many producers would greenlight something like that? For this medium to transcend purely entertainment and to become an art we first have to have an industry that sees itself as creating art. It doesn't have to mean all art-house kind of games but more that are made by designers that see themselves as artist, in their own sense, within a creative medium. If we don't think we can achieve a status of art yet, then we wont be looking for a means to.

IN HARTMANN'S DEFENSE
In Hartmann's defense, as far as he's concerned, you can't convey a true range of emotions yet. In a market where shooters are the one reliable project to return a profit, how often does a designer really get a chance to explore a range of emotions? The largest demographic of the market want first person, and in first person as you are looking through the eyes of the character you might expect -to a degree- the world to look photo-realistic, as the eye sees it. The main demographic is white hetrosexual males ages from high school to college, the demographics are growing to include more then that sure, but still at this time what the industry produces is still generally governed by the most marketable items to that demographic. Violence & fighting, guns, sexual pandering, you get the picture. Then how do designers break this mold?

Well, actually they do it by not breaking it, they stretch it. They use what is popular to create art and expression in the game experiences they mold. Like basically, all other artists... Sure we haven't figured it out entirely, but no medium has, and we are learning. Take a look at the outcome thus far.  

   

In our own manner we have created art, we've conveyed true emotions and characters that the player connect and feel empathy for. And we've been doing it for a long time, we can't look at other mediums for comparison; because we have plenty of amazing moments in gaming history that convey powerful experiences to the player, those moments are what we have to learn from to better our medium and the emotional experiences we convey to the player. And that's just about all I can say on that. Until next time, thanks for tuning in everyone. If anyone has any comments they'd like to add to the discussion, feel free.